Texas briefs: Police investigate two high school players who hit ref during game

The Associated Press

Published 4:07 am, Tuesday, September 8, 2015

Image 1of/1

Caption

Close

Image 1 of 1

Texas briefs: Police investigate two high school players who hit ref during game

1 / 1

Back to Gallery

MARBLE FALLS— A San Antonio-area police department is investigating two football players who rammed into a referee during a high school game.

Marble Falls, Texas, police said in a statement Monday there have been no arrests.

The Northside Independent School District is conducting its own investigation into the incident Friday and has suspended the two players from the school and the team.

Video showed the referee watching the play, and his head snapping back when he is leveled from behind. The other player then dove on top of him. The team from John Jay High School in San Antonio was playing Marble Falls High School in Marble Falls, located about 90 miles north of San Antonio.

The names of the players and the referee have not been released.

Body of 52-year-old man found in Southeast Texas lake

VICTORIA — Officials say a man whose body was recovered from a Southeast Texas lake is believed to have died in a boating accident.

John Miller, Justice of the Peace for Precinct 4, said the body of the 52-year-old man from Victoria was recovered from Saxet Lake near Victoria on Saturday afternoon. He says officials had gotten a call Friday afternoon about a boat that had been abandoned.

Game Warden Travis Haug says the man’s death is under investigation. An autopsy has been ordered.

Man who died in refinery accident identified

PORT ARTHUR — Authorities have identified the man who died at a Southeast Texas refinery after the bulldozer he was operating fell into a pit filled with 200-degree byproduct wastewater.

The Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office said Sunday that 66-year-old Thomas Courts of the North Texas town of Denton died Saturday at the Total facility in Port Arthur. Officials said Courts was a contract worker with Kinder Morgan.

Marc DeRouen, Jefferson County Justice of the Peace for Precinct 2, said a co-worker used his machine to pull out the bulldozer, but Courts was already dead. DeRouen has ordered an autopsy to determine cause of death.

Carroll says the victim likely was pushing petroleum coke, a byproduct of crude refining which is like fine graphite, into the pit. The bulldozer somehow overtopped the levee.

Man fatally shot in drive-by shooting

SAN ANTONIO — San Antonio police are searching for a suspect or suspects after a 66-year-old man was killed in a drive-by shooting.

Police tell the San Antonio Express-News that Allen Smith was inside his car Saturday night when he was shot several times in the chest.

He was taken to a hospital, where he later died.

The Bexar County medical examiner says Smith died from gunshot wounds to the trunk and neck. The death was ruled a homicide.

Former spouses dead after shooting

LEANDER — Two former spouses have been shot to death in what police say was a domestic disturbance in Central Texas.

Police in Leander, located just north of Austin, say that the Saturday evening shooting remains under investigation but they are not searching for a suspect.

Police say 47-year-old Nury Velez-Derivera and her ex-husband, 48-year-old Mauna Jaimes Alcantara, died in the shooting at Velez-Derivera’s home.

Leander police Lt. Derral Partin tells the Austin American-Statesman that Velez-Derivera died at the scene and Alcantara died on the way to the hospital.

Police investigating vandalism at cemetery

TEMPLE— Police in the Central Texas town of Temple are investigating after grave markers and headstones were damaged at a cemetery.

Police said Monday that the damage was done sometime between Saturday evening and Sunday at Hillcrest Cemetery.